Blood On My Hands
by GeorgieInTheSky
Summary: Yeah. I started writing again. I will finish my other fic soon. I'm not going to give this plot away, but it will be a long one. Enjoy! Danisnotonfire/AmazingPhil, and various other pairings.
1. Prologue

"Maybe we shouldn't…" I whisper, as we edge closer to the girl. She looks older than us, by a few years at least, or maybe just the tear tracks on her cheeks added age to the pale contours of her face. I take a step backwards, while the others edge forward. She hasn't noticed them, and maybe this is a good thing. Maybe they'll decide to leave her alone. Her dark brown hair is framing her face, covering her eyes slightly on one side, making her pale eyes look brighter. Her hands tremble slightly, you'd never notice if you weren't looking for it. I want to leave her alone even more than I did before. "Please." I whisper, but just as before, the group creep forwards, leaving me and my churning worries behind. I always feel like this before, but somehow it's worse. Taking a victim, breaking them more, than just creating a new one, seeing the remaining light left in someone's eyes just fade away, because of you, because of something you're forced to do. At last, it seems my detachment from the group has been noticed, as Jack turns round to me.

"Howell. Don't play about. You're on thin enough ice as it is. Don't push us anymore." The words themselves scare me enough, but his tone makes me cringe in my own skin, though the only sign of it is a slight twitch of my left eye. Wordlessly I nod, even though from the corner of my eye I can see the slow motion of a head rising up to meet the gazes of elven predators, and taking in the figure staring at the floor, the prisoner. I glance up at her, it's all I can manage. Her eyes are filled with a sort of fear, mixed with determination. If she thinks she can fight her way out, then she's wrong. The dread pools in my stomach. I meet her stare again, pleading with my eyes. _Don't run away. Don't listen to what they say. Ignore what they do. Please._

She's confused. The others form a tight ring around her, I hover in the background. I wish she'd stop looking at me, it makes the discomfort, the pain worse. Somehow I wonder if my pain is worse than theirs. They get it once, maybe temporarily worse, but mine is repeated over and over and over, endlessly. Sometimes I wonder why they make me do this. I'm not one of them, I'm not like them, but then I realise that's the exact reason. They take pleasure in other people's pain, and I'm just another victim. They like it, watching me suffer. Making me watch them make other people suffer. She's still looking at me. I'm not looking, but I know that Chris has taken the step, that he's going to make his move. The others have fallen silent. I look down at my feet, scuffing the toes of my trainers against the grass.

I hear the slight rustle of his feet as he bends down to take the first blow, knock down her defences. He was so good at it, they all were. Knew exactly what buttons to press to ruin a person inside. I want to scream at her to ignore him, scream at him until he stops. A rough pull to the hair on the back of my head forces me to look up, watch the scene play out before me. Two victims, but one of us will be forced to live the same horror over and over and over again. Her eyes fill with tears, but in a split second, they're gone, the glaze in her eyes replaced by a strong resolve that scares me. The devastation on her features is replaced by a calm determination, the set of her mouth narrowing, and her eyes looking, but not really singing.

Chris is surprised. He takes a step back, when he doesn't hear the normal intake of breath, see the silent tears that threaten to spill from the corners of the eyes. He looks at her, seeing exactly what I do, the eerie tenacity that has taken over her body. With the peaceful smile and closing of her eyes, I know this is wrong, this is very wrong. From the pocket of her coat, she pulls out something metal and shiny, sharp and terrifying. Chris lets out a yelp and jumps back, but she doesn't aim it at him, of course she doesn't. The others back away , scattering, but I stumble forward blindly, reaching out. I'm too late. Of course I'm too late. There's a sharp ringing in my ears, followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor, and I'm falling, I can't breathe, and my vision goes blurry, but I can still see everything clearly. Her blood on my hands.


	2. We are electric pulses

I sit, head down, staring at the layer of filth covering the table of the trashy bar I've ended up in, the foul smell filling my nostrils that initially made me want to gag, that I've become accustomed to. I can hear the laughter, very little of it genuine, mostly hookers trying to catch their prey for the night, occasionally feigned laughter at an awful joke in an attempt to preserve a friendship. It's not real, but it still makes me feel alone. Aren't we all in the end? Alone. I've looked in the mirror, and the person there is barely a person, but a shell, an empty reflection of the person I used to be. Not that he was much, but he was something. I'm barely alive. I'm trying. I haven't given up. I just need to get a job, do _something,_ and see some sort of purpose again. Then things will be okay. They will be.

The music hurts. The alcohol pumping through my veins is numbing, but it's not enough. I can still think, still feel, and that's too much, I want to be gone. I want to waste away until I can't remember who I am in the morning and then do it all again. It's a kind of slow suicide; drinking away the pain until your liver rots and your brain shrinks and there's nothing left to keep you going. It hurts. It's too loud, and it's crushing me, pushing against my skin and trying to break in. I close my eyes and drain my glass, throwing my head back, wincing against the burn of the liquid down my throat. It's an acquired taste, and I don't have it yet. Someone takes up the chair opposite me, but I barely register the prescence. I want to be alone. I always want to be alone, and yet I crave the company, the touch of others. Years. It's been years. I don't know if I can remember what it's like, to have a conversation, a proper conversation, where you can talk and cry and laugh until your stomach hurts, to be able to tell all of your thoughts and your feelings and everything you've seen about the world to someone else, someone who will see your point of view and then share their own take on everything around us. Ironic as it seems, I'm a better person than I ever was, I can see the world in bright new ways, I can think differently, I feel differently and yet each and every observation just makes me realise how insignificant and wrecked a person I am.

They said something, I think. I wasn't listening. Maybe I could, but I can hear the laughter, and the music, the godamn music won't stop. I glance up. She's pretty, but not in the traditional way. Her hair is pink and her smile seems genuine, the first to be aimed at me in longer than I can remember. She's different to the people in this place, radiating light and hope in amongst the darkness of the bar, designed to hide the true intentions of the girls of the night, the dealers, the innocents who come out looking for fun.

I don't smile back. It's not a familiar movement, an action I haven't performed since the incident. How am I expected to smile? It's a chore. It's fake, although on her it doesn't look it. I just shake my head and stand, my dark eyes meeting her slightly lighter ones for a brief second. "Whatever you want, I'm not interested." My voice is rough and quiet, giving away that I don't use it enough.

"You looked like you needed company." Her voice surprises me. It's not the tinkling soprano of the tacky girls who try and come on to you, try and get you when you least expected. Hers is different, filled with genuine warmth that is unlike any way I've been spoken to in a long time, but she's just the same, she doesn't get the hint. I want to be alone. I can't risk it. I'm not worth the time, especially not for somebody like this. I can tell she has a good heart, and I'm just the broken boy, beating himself up over mistakes he made a long time ago. I shake my head again, my brown hair flopping into my eyes as I take a few steps away.

"Thanks. But no." I glance at her as I leave, and I see the pity etched onto her face. My fingers curl into fists, all I've wanted for too long was someone to care, and now there's the possibility I can't stand the idea. The last person on earth that deserves to be cared about is me. I run a slightly trembling hand through my hair, regaining the little sight I'd lost from my hair obscuring my vision, but more for something to keep my hands busy than caring about being able to see. I stumbled from the bar, tripping over my own feet, feeling the effects of the alcohol hit me harder now that I was upright and moving. My breathing was ragged and uneven and I could feel a pair of eyes on me as I staggered towards the rough direction of home, the drink in my system protecting me from the sharp winter air of November. I'd left my jacket behind in my haste.

Hundreds of pairs of eyes are on me as I shove through the crowds of people, willing myself to ignore the stares and glances as I push people aside, wincing at even the slightest brush of an arm against mine. Shivers rack my body, but more from the discomfort of the evening's events and hatred for myself than the cold, even though I'm covered by little more than a thin t-shirt and black skinny jeans. Glancing down at my hand and arm reveals that despite my lack of feeling, my body is reacting to the cold, with goose bumps appearing along my arms. Need to get home. Need to get home. Crowds are suffocating. The constant competition for space, each putting their own needs before another's; the need to be on time, the desire to have fun, the impatience at the inability to move freely. The faces and the features all blur into one, colours blend, faces no longer have distinct features, the bodies of the people are no longer separate entities but one mass moving against me with one aim.

Light splashes of rain fall against my face and bare arms, bringing with it a sense of clarity. I can see, and suddenly the crowd is not so hard to move through, and breathing becomes easier and with a final few shoves, I make it through. I'm still alive. I'm still breathing, the oxygen still being carried from my lungs to my heart and then pumped around my body, reaching all the unseen expanses that keep our bodies working. It's funny, how many people are wrong about the simple action of breathing. It's not actually the need for oxygen that drives us to breath, but rather uncomfortable levels of carbon dioxide. And when we open our mouths to draw in air, we don't suck it in, the contraction of the diaphragm and the movement of our ribs creates a vacuum, so naturally the air rushes in to fill it. Something as simple as breathing, which you barely register, is something so wonderful, an example of the intricate workings of our body, which no matter how hard science tries technology will never be able to match. Oh it's progress, they say. But what are we progressing towards? What do you hope to gain by disrupting the natural order of life, adapting and tweaking the way in which life works? I fail to see a goal. Constant changes, but what do we have in the end? The death of humanity. Inevitable, and yet, we continue to fight it, perhaps believing that with so called progress we can delay the end?

It's dying. With every advance in science, we kill something beautiful. Man will always take what it wants, no questions asked. Technology has its benefits, but I'd rather live life the way it was intended to be, unspoiled by the vision and greed of humans. My incessant hatred of the world that we've made for ourselves is further proof that I don't belong here, I am an outsider in this society where nothing is the way it should be. I can't be happy, but if I close my eyes and pretend that the rain against my skin is from thousands and thousands of years ago, that I am alone, that the city around me is no longer a jungle of concrete, but a _real _jungle, filled with trees and wildlife and the glorious animals who once made their homes there, then I could be.

A car horn beeps and I open my eyes and blink, stepping back from the glaring light. I practically fall out of the road, my feet moving without my brain consciously telling them to. It's odd, like a reflex reaction, even though there is no way this could be programmed into my DNA. I sometimes like to imagine the impulses that travel to my brain or my spine, with every movement, every thought, everything I am not aware of, and it makes it seem real. I am a web of electric pulses, and then in turn we are electric pulses in the breathing heart of the country. We make the living breathing entity that is society; we define it, shape it, and adapt it until it is ours. No matter how set apart I am, I am here, and I matter. Maybe the most miniscule amount, but I matter. The world would be different if I was not here, standing on it. My decisions, my actions, have left imprints that have shaped further decisions and actions, and no matter how small or how big, they will have consequences that I will never know.

I will never know what could have happened if I had talked to the girl in the bar. She seemed nice. She could have fixed me. But she could have just walked away. Because who could care about me? Daniel James Howell. Barely living, barely aware, barely here, barely important. But I am alive. I slink back through the rain, hanging my head, watching my shoes, scuffing them on the ground. My stomach twists. I don't want to go back there. Maybe time-travel isn't possible, but my brain can take me back as far as I want, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.


	3. Home is where the heart is

I'm lying in bed but I can't sleep, a common occurrence thanks to the insomnia that I've been cursed with. More time to think, and that's the last thing that I need. I glance at the clock on my bedside, squinting to make out the numbers properly, the red lights glaring at me. 3:17. I blunder out of bed blindly, my eyes not yet adjusted to the dark, throwing back the covers and steadying myself against the wall. My hands are my guide, trailing my fingers along the wall until I reach the door frame, cautiously creeping from my room into the kitchen. There is no need to be quiet, I live alone, but I am careful to keep the level of noise to a minimum anyway. I reach up to open the cupboard, feeling the slight burn of the muscles in my arm as I stretch to reach a glass. I turn the cold metal tap, lukewarm water cascading down and crashing against the sink. I leave it for a few seconds to give it time to adjust, reaching the icy temperature I want it to, filling my glass.  
I throw my head back and drain the liquid in a matter of seconds, like I am accustomed to doing with the whiskey. I can feel the water sloshing about in my system and it's uncomfortable, but the frosty temperature has given me a sense of alertness, and I'm suddenly more awake. The fog from my brain is lifted, and clear, coherent thoughts begin to form in my mind again. I slam the glass down against the kitchen surface with more force than I intended, leaning against the edge of the cool stone. With the clarity comes the sickness, and though the drink is still coursing through my veins, it is now too diluted to fight off the effects. I don't know what it is. Living, maybe. But being able to think means being able to feel, and I can feel the burn of my skin, the trembling of my hands, the no doubt shrinking of my pupils, the churning in my stomach. I fill the glass again, water spilling over the edges thanks to the tremors racking my body. As they become more violent I drop the glass completely, and watch as it shatters. I stumble forwards over the shards, my legs barely responding to the commands of my brain, the glass slicing my feet, but I can no longer bring myself to care.  
It keeps getting worse. The withdrawal symptoms, and when I know that relief is so far away, I can't help but cry out. I keep blundering forwards until I find myself in the living room, at which point my legs refuse to work and simply give out on me. My outstretched arms break my fall and stop me from tumbling through the window, although I wished I had. Sprawled on the floor in nothing but a pair of boxers, I curl into a ball, watching the city through the thick glass in place of the wall, covering from ceiling to floor. The lights, the people, the action that I no longer feel a part of, but it's my home. They say home is where the heart is, but where does that leave me? Fucked. For the rest of the world, home is a sanctuary, safety, friends and family and warmth and hope and happiness and everything that is good in this world, not that there's an awful lot of that left. This place is a reflection of me, empty, void of character, cold, lonely.  
I want to feel like me again, even though I know I don't deserve it. Young, seven year old Dan, who could never have dreamed such evil existed in this world, with a smile on his face, the worst pain in his life being a scraped knee or being forced to eat sprouts. He's a stranger now. The wail of police sirens somewhere in the street below brings me back, and the sweat on my hands is no longer sweat but it's blood, and I'm not curled up on my floor but on the grass, and I'm not shaking from the pain from shock. The city beneath me is alive, and my eyes are open, seeing, but not seeing. Lights, cars, people, they're all shadows, unimportant.  
Pain in my chest alerts me to the fact I've been holding my breath, and I gasp, but it won't come properly. I'm a mess, and even when the lack of oxygen makes my brain feel fuzzy and cuts off some of my thought, I know that much. Even as the panic sets in, and I'm desperately trying to get enough oxygen into my lungs for my body to function, I still can't help but think that everything would be easier if I was just dead. My eyes flutter closed, and with a huge effort I return my breathing to normal, sitting up and pressing my cheek to the cold glass of the window, watching the web of the city. I prefer the bustle of the streets to the almost desperate seclusion of the countryside, but it comes with a downside. The people, so many people. This place used to make me feel alive, and I could forget, but nothing helps. Not anymore. You can drink, but you never really forget. You can leave your ghosts behind, but they always catch up with you in the end.  
I watch as the moisture in my breath condenses on the cold glass of the window, lifting my hand to trace a pattern, reminding me of long car journeys as a child. I lean away slightly, looking at the childish, sloppy heart I've drawn; the first thing to make me smile slightly for as long as I can remember. But a few seconds pass, and a single drop trails from the top of the heart right through the bottom, and the hint of a smile vanishes. Just like everything else, it ends, and it's broken. I touch the path the drop has left behind it, feeling unusual sadness in the broken heart on my window. I wipe it away with my sleeve, frowning as I leave a smudge on the glass, which no amount of rubbing will remove.  
I decide to leave it until the morning, getting up, stretching in an attempt to reduce the soreness in my limbs. All of my muscles hurt from the shaking, my head is still pounding and the clarity that remains in my head means that the ache won't go away, but it's bearable. I feel sleep beginning to descend on me, and I decide to give in, hoping the haze will take away the soberness, even just for a while. I take a few unsteady steps, the movement creating a sudden rush of blood from my head, leaving me temporarily blinded and doubled over in pain for a few seconds before my body adjusts, and I make my way blindly to my bed.  
Worries plague me before sleep takes over, but when don't they? Worries about the future, about my past, about me. Anxiously biting my nails, I close my eyes and let myself drift into unconsciousness, slipping into a troubled sleep, but its sleep nonetheless. Even with the image of her broken body visible in my mind's eye, the occasional flash of pink hair, dark eyes that I've feared ever since I ran. All the terrors and mistakes of my past laid out before me, but it's still sleep. I never expected an escape.


End file.
